Tag Archives: recipes

Resolutions and Recipes: A tip I can share, and a recipe I can’t

4 Jan

Our gravy recipe is top secret!

When I was growing up, the day my mother “made the gravy” which some of you call sauce, was a huge deal. It was an all-day affair and included the cooking of both the meats (pork chops and meatballs) and the sauce. The house would smell incredibly good all day long and we knew that at the end of the day (literally, not figuratively) there’d be macaroni and meatballs for dinner.

The recipe was top secret. No one knew it and it was a combination of recipes from both grandmothers, according to my mom. When she was cooking the gravy you had to stay out of the way and not touch anything, not even the wooden spoon that sat in the pan all day. That spoon was part of the reason the gravy tasted as good as it did.

The gravy recipe yielded more than enough gravy for just one meal, and my mom would divide up the extras into “Newport Creamery” ice cream containers and freeze them that way for future meals. (Those of you in New England know what Newport Creamery is!) Then, on a busy night, instead of having to cook an entire meal from scratch, one of us could just take out a container of gravy and transfer it into a microwave bowl for reheating. Boil some pasta, make a salad, and there’s dinner.

My dad used to joke that he couldn’t “trade her in for a newer model” because my mom would take with her the secret to making the gravy and without that, he would never survive. That and a whole bunch of other things, but really that’s a whole other post. 🙂

When I got married and it was the day of my bridal shower (August 6, 1995) I received a small wrapped box from my mom; it hardly weighed anything at all. But, what was inside was worth its weight in gold, and more. It was….the recipe for the gravy, along with a card which read, “From me to you, one of the secrets to a good marriage. Love, Mom.”

The recipe and the card, in the original box, truly is one of the secrets to a good marriage.

Clearly, I can’t share the recipe with you. It’s top secret. I keep it in the original box, with her card and the box is labeled down the side because I store it like a cookbook with all my other cookbooks, and also because when I was working as a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator one day, I got a cell-phone call from my husband (who usually had to make the gravy since I worked weekends.) I whispered into my phone, “What’s wrong??” because he never called me when I was working. “I can’t find the recipe for the gravy,” he said. Hence the red Sharpie title down the side of the box.

For several years I made the gravy myself, but I did let him in on the secret when I started my Stampin’ Up! job so that we didn’t miss out eating it just because I was working. What I can share with you though is this: Making your own gravy and meatballs is a huge money-saver and so much more delicious than not.

See the wooden spoon? Very important.

The total cost of our gravy according to yesterday’s PriceRite receipt is as follows:

Crushed Tomatoes: $2.97 total for the three cans needed

Tomato Paste: $1.56 total for the four cans needed

Grd. Beef for meatballs: $12.72

Pork Chops for the sauce: $8.57

Total: $25.82

We store ours in ziploc bags in our freezer, marked with the date.

That amount of money gave us EIGHT meals. Our pasta is 88 cents per box so you need to add that into each meal as well, plus the cost of your salad that night if you make one.

So for about $5 per meal (that includes the salad and the pasta,) you get an AMAZING dinner that feeds five of us, and I mean amazing. There is nothing like a homemade macaroni and meatball dinner. That’s one dollar per person, per meal. Can you beat it?

homemade meatballs

The kids rolled these, they get more and more uniform each time they do it. Although we did get the question, "Can we make these any shape we want?" No...

There is the opportunity for the kids to help out if you’d like, when rolling the meatballs. The recipe makes for a ton of meatballs so once again, having the extra sets of hands does make a difference and their pride in being able to say, “We rolled all the meatballs,” as you take your first bite, is priceless. Some day our girls will each have the recipe as well, so it’s good to give them this experience early on.

You can make it in the crockpot or on the stove. We had a lot of meatballs this time, on purpose, so it took up two stovetop pots.

So there you have it, the recipe I can’t share with you but the tip for saving money and eating well that I can. I hope that at least that part of it helps you in your meal planning and budgeting!

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Donut Wars: New Year’s Eve 2011

3 Jan
Babyckaes Donut Maker

My new toy!

This year for Christmas I received a Babycakes Donut Maker from my mother-in-law in Virginia. I don’t know how she could’ve known that I had looked at this longingly in EVERY store I went to, but it’s not something I’d splurge on myself. I thought it would be a fun gift; fun for playdates and birthday parties, things like that.

My sister-in-law, Jessica in Virginia received one from her as well, and we spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s in Virginia with them, staying at my sister-in-law’s house. Between us we have five girls ranging in age from 6 to 12, so we look for fun activities, crafts and special things to do when we’re together, but especially on New Year’s Eve when we have a long night ahead of us.

Since we both got the same gift and my sister-in-law has a large kitchen space, we decided to create a Donut Wars event for the kids on New Year’s Eve, to christen our new Babycakes Donut Makers and to make yet another unforgettable New Year’s Eve for our kids, three of whom made it to midnight this year.

The Festivus Christmas Team, I was their team captain.

The Pinkalicious Team, Grandma was their team captain.

To start our Donut Wars, we came up with two teams based on the cake mixes we were going to use for our donuts. You can use the recipes included in the box or cake mixes. For our first time we opted for cake mixes, although I do plan to eventually try out some of the recipes that come with the maker. My sister-in-law had a Funfetti Christmas cake mix and a Strawberry Cake mix, so we named our two teams the Festivus Christmas Team and the Pinkalicious Team. We paired the kids up into two teams of two and each team had one adult captain. (Jessica’s youngest wanted to be a judge, the two daddies were judges and Jess was a floater.) To make it even more fun, the kids dressed up in funky clothes and accessories.

Common Ingredients for all to use

The two teams were each given their cake mix and a vanilla frosting, all the mixing bowls and measuring cups they needed, a Babycakes Donut Maker, and a counter full of Common Ingredients that they could use for their decorating no matter what team they were on. We set one team up on the island and one team up at the kitchen table with the Common Ingredients between them on the end of the island.

Once we got the teams set up with their captains, judges waiting in the wings, the teams got started.

Here’s what followed:

Some egg cracking,

Some egg separating,

Some oil measuring,

They took turns mixing,

had frequent visits from our primary judge, Abbey,

And the Festivus Team had technical difficulties with some faulty ziploc bags.

but overall, things were going well!

The kit came with its own cooling rack and fork for taking the donuts out of the machine, both of which were very important.

Aunty Jessie helped both teams.

While *some* of us took the opportunity to get a nap in before the big ball dropping later on.

Soon the donuts were done for the Festivus Team

and for the Pinkalicious Team, who actually finished first.

and it was time....

...to judge...

...the donuts!

The judges were each given an index card with the team’s name on top. Each team had picked three donuts or sets of donuts to showcase for the judges. The judges had to go to each team and critique the donuts on taste, creativity, presentation and then give and overall score (just like that show we watch, Four Weddings, on TLC!) Jess and I had prizes for both teams as well as for both captains, so no matter what it would all work out. (We love our respective Dollar Tree dollar stores for things like that!)

Christmas Wreath and Snowman face from the Festivus Team- creative!

Presentation: the 3D Festivus Donut on a spackled frosting dish

Hand-chopped candy canes top the Festivus Teams third set of donuts for judging.

Pinkalicious's VERY pink donuts with marshmallow centers for judging.

Hand-shaved chocolate, shaved by team captain Grandma, for the Pinkalicious team's presentation table.

Beautiful pink and white candy cane donuts from the Pinkalicious Team for the judges to eat.

Overall, a grand time was had by all! We found the Babycakes Donut Maker to be easy to use, to include all of the items we needed, and we loved that we had the option to use cake mixes instead of making the donuts from scratch. With that many kids, it was much easier using the mix than working from scratch, especially for the first time.

A few things to note:
1) The donuts are tiny (so you can eat a whole bunch!)

2) The donut maker gets HOT and the directions say so several times in several different places, but even still we had a burn victim no less. Caroline accidentally leaned against one of them to get a common ingredient and burned her stomach. Hello Neosporin. She still finished out the entire competition, with an ice pack on her stomach.

3) Overall it took about an hour to go from start to finish and that’s with captains and floaters. If I were doing this for a playdate I’d make the donuts ahead and let them decorate them. This would help with time, space and less of a chance of anyone getting burned.

4) One cake mix makes about 42 donuts from our count (so we had almost 100 donuts by the end!)

5) The donut maker has a very short cord, perfect for my tiny kitchen corner that has an outlet right there, but depending on your space you might need to plug into an extension cord first.

I’m glad we have the Babycakes Donut Maker and I can’t wait to use it again (neither can the kids) and to try out some of the “from scratch” recipes. There’s also a zillion different cake mix flavors out there, so no matter what our hearts desire, we can have donuts in any flavor we want as time goes on. Alex was already planning on a baking party for her March birthday, which she’s been planning since October, so this just added to her plans. I see aprons and chef’s hats as possible craft ideas!

I definitely recommend this product if you’re considering it, and so do our Donut Wars Team Participants!

All of the Donut Wars contestants and their judge, Abbey

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Happy New Year! Resolutions and Recipes

1 Jan

Time to get a new day planner!

Today is January 1, 2012, the first day of the new year.  On this day each year, so many people make New Year’s Resolutions, do you?

I personally find New Year’s Resolutions to be an odd thing. I think it is because to me, January seems to be the middle of the year, not the start of the year. I have lived an entire lifetime on a school schedule:  I was a student and then I was a teacher, my husband is a school principal and my kids are all in school. Therefore, when I set goals for myself it tends to be in at the beginning of a school year, not at the beginning of a new year and to me a new year really seems to start in September, not January. For example, this year was the first year that my children were all in school all day long after 12 years of having kids at home, so September was a big goal-setting time for me this year. Creating this blog and maintaining it faithfully was just one of my goals.

However, I will share this with you. Several years ago, right before Christmas my husband and I decided that we had used our credit cards for the last time. We decided that we needed to make some real changes in how we managed our money because the economy was changing and not for the better. My home-based business was not bringing in the mortgage-paying money that it used to, and it was essentially like losing my job, even though people don’t often consider home-based businesses to be jobs, this one provided a huge contribution to our family budget and it was now gone. With careful budgeting and frugal living, we were going to pay off all our debt in less than five years instead of taking more than five decades.

I carry a calculator in my purse for when we're shopping.

The commitment to change came at a time when everything in the economy was going downhill and the expenses were all going up between the cost of gas (nearly $5 per gallon at the time,) food and utilities. It meant that we had to (and still have to, we have 18 months left) make a lot of sacrifices such as not eating out EVER unless we had a gift card (or even better, a gift card AND a coupon,) not taking big vacations, and most importantly, not spending what we didn’t have. We pay cash for everything and if we don’t have the cash we don’t buy it, which is very difficult.

One thing we won’t sacrifice however, is our taste for delicious, healthy, home-cooked meals. We both love to cook and (who doesn’t love to eat, right?) but almost immediately we found that we had to change the way we shopped. We used to shop at some of the larger stores, spending several hundred dollars per shopping trip each week (Stop and Shop, Shaws and BJ’s Wholesale store are the ones near us) but at the urging of our cousin and a close friend, that September we decided to try out some of the smaller, bargain stores. We are lucky because not only do we have a Price Rite near us, but we have Aldi’s as well, which I love. Just by making that one change in where we shopped, we saved literally hundreds of dollars per month on food, which is the same food we were purchasing in the larger stores, without sacrificing what we loved to cook and eat. We can shop for our family of five for every meal for about $225 every TWO weeks–the same money were spending once a week at the big stores. We shop as soon as we get paid and other than picking up milk and maybe more fresh fruit at the second week, we don’t do another big shopping again until we get paid again two weeks later. So for five people, three meals a day every day, we spend approximately $500 a month on groceries or less.

In honor of the start of this new year I will be sharing with you some of the tips, and of course recipes, that we have found to help us stick to our grocery budget without sacrificing healthy, delicious meals. I’m sure we’re not the only ones who have “saving money” as our goal each year, no matter what month the year begins, and hopefully you’ll find something that helps you with your goals and resolutions as well.

Additionally, in honor of the New Year’s holiday I am sharing my grandmother’s French Meat Pie recipe today. It’s a recipe she has made for the new year each year since I can remember and last year she was featured in the newspaper for it. At time I shared it with my Facebook friends, and now I am sharing it with you today.

Grandma Grello and the girls

Grandma Grello makes French Meat Pies for everyone, a dozen of them, every new year.

GRAM GRELLO’S FRENCH MEAT PIE

Posted in the Providence Journal – Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Crust for two 9-inch pies (4 sheets of Pillsbury Pie Crust)

1 pound ground beef

1 pound ground pork

1/4 cup butter, unsalted

1 small onion chopped

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon sage

1/4 teaspoon parsley

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon mace

2 cups water

2 teaspoons cornstarch diluted with water

1 stack of unsalted Saltine Crackers, crushed

Milk for brushing crust

Sauté meat in butter and cook until no longer pink. Add onion, seasonings and water and cook for about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Add cornstarch and cook a little longer; then add crackers.

Let cool.

Spoon meat mix into 2 crust-lined 9-inch pie plates. Divide mixture between the two; about three cups each.

Top each with second crust. Press edges together to seal and seal with fork.

Brush top crust with milk. Pierce holes in crust with fork and bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes. Lower heat to 375 degrees and bake for 35 minutes or until baked on top.

Makes two pies.

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What’s a Doughboy?

31 Dec

I found this picture of a doughboy soldier on Wikapedia.

This morning we had doughboys for breakfast, one of our extra-special treats. What is a doughboy? Depends what state you’re in and who you ask!

A quick look on Wikapedia shows one meaning:

Doughboy is an informal term for an American soldier, especially members of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in World War I. The term dates back to the Mexican–American War of 1846–48.

The term was used sparingly during World War II, gradually replaced by the appellations “G.I.“, “Troop“, or “Dogface“, but was still used in popular songs of the day, as in the 1942 song “Johnny Doughboy found a Rose in Ireland.”[1] It dropped out of popular use soon after World War II.[2]

Then there’s the ever-famous Pillsbury Doughboy too, as seen here on this book that I saw on Amazon.com.

But still no, that’s not the kind of doughboy that we had!!

Our kind of doughboys are sometimes called Funnel Cakes or Malasades if you are Portugese.

Platter of doughboys

Done and ready to eat!

In basic terms, it’s fried dough covered in sugar or cinnamon/sugar or jelly or powdered sugar and it is DELICOUS!! It is *not* healthy, which is why it’s a special treat.

Don makes fantastic doughboys, and this time when he made them, I took photos for you.

The dough for doughboys is sometimes hard to find.

One thing about making doughboys is you need to find dough. Where we live, it’s easy to find and it’s only $1.00 per bag in most places. When we visit my inlaws we bring our dough with us because there’s none to be found in the south.

When Don is making doughboys for a large group he makes 3 or 4 pounds of dough. The dough is stored in the fridge so you need to take it out a little bit ahead of time. It does not need to rise, but it needs to get the chill out before it’s used.

Separate the dough into smaller pieces.

Once it’s at room temperature, you need to separate the dough into smaller pieces which will get bigger once the dough is deep fried.

We use a regular frying pan, as deep as we have, to fry the dough. You fry several pieces at a time in vegetable (or canola) oil until they are a dark, golden brown color.

Once the doughboys are golden brown on both sides, they can be taken out of the frying pan and placed on layers of paper toweling.

Once they’re done on both sides, we recommend taking them out and placing them on a couple layers of paper toweling, to catch the extra oil as it drips off.

We prefer to sprinkle regular sugar on top, but you can sprinkle anything on top that you prefer.

Enjoy!

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Sooo…what was for Christmas dinner? Part 1

27 Dec
Roasted pork chops, sauteed green beans, butternut squash, twice baked potatoes, applesauce

Here's my plate, just before I dug in!

Yesterday’s post showed our pretty ordinary Christmas breakfast, which despite the simplicity of it, we love it. I noted however, that our dinner is more elaborate since we do host Christmas.

We tend to be creatures of habit, so we make the same thing more or less, every single year: Pork roast with homemade applesauce, twice baked potatoes, sauteed green beans and this year my cousin Val made butternut squash with apples as well (one of my favorite vegetables ever, by the way.)

This meal is actually relatively easy to prepare because you can do a lot of it ahead of time. You can use this meal for any occasion, not just Christmas, but it’s definitely our go-to meal for Christmas Day.

Homemade applesauce

Six pounds of apples is a lot to peel, and I'm always amazed at how much this reduces once it's done. It looks like less than it is, once the apples are cooked.

The day before, I make the homemade applesauce using six pounds of apples.

You can find the recipe for the applesauce on my Hanukkah post here.

Homemade applesauce, cooked.

Here's how it looks all cooked.

Once the applesauce is cooked, I put it into the serving bowl for the next day, and put it into the fridge, cinnamon stick and all. Just needs to be reheated in the microwave before dinner.

Homemade Applesauce

Ready to serve on Christmas Day.

Another big part of the dinner which can be prepped ahead of time, is the twice baked potatoes. Don does those.

Tomorrow, I will share that recipe and show the steps to get you from a bag of potatoes to the yummy side dish that we love so much. And, as an added bonus, the recipe for Twice Baked Potatoes gives you a ready-made appetizer as well: Potato Skins. You’ll see how that happens when you read tomorrow’s post.

Here we are, ready to eat our Christmas Dinner. Missing from the photo: Don, who's taking the picture so that I can be in it, for once!

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Bonus Post: Story time, a cookie recipe and a craft

23 Dec
The Night Before The Night Before Christmas

A very funny story to read tonight!

It’s Friday night!! Even though we’re not doing Family Movie Night tonight, I do have a story for you: “The Night Before The Night Before Christmas,” a funny story by Natasha Wing, illustrated by Mike Lester.

This is a great story to read on Christmas Eve-Eve, different than your typical actual Night Before Christmas stories, which you can read tomorrow night.

In addition to reading, here’s a cookie recipe for you as well:

OATMEAL SCOTCHIES

INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp grd. cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cups packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups quick or oldfashioned oats
1 2/3 cup (or one 11 ounce bag) butterscotch chips

Oatmeal Scotchie Cookies

These use butterscotch chips and oatmeal. They're a yummy, crunchy cookie!

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl.

Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla in large mixing bowl.

Gradually beat in flour mixture.

Stir in oats and chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 7-8 minutes for chewier cookies, 9-10 for crispier cookies.

Cool on cookie sheet 2 minutes, transfer to rack to cool completely.

AND FINALLY……

If you’re looking for some fun, homemade ornament ideas to do during the day on Christmas Eve to help the kids pass the time on what can be a very long day, waiting for the “big event,” here is a collection of photos of some of my favorites from this year and years past. These make great last minute gifts or “tags” to add onto a gift package, or…to add to your tree!

handmade ornament using a container cover

My sister-in-law always makes a handmade ornament each year. This year she collected all kinds of covers, all year long, to create the ornaments.

Popsicle stick ornament

Here is the ornament Elizabeth brought home today, made out of popsicle sticks and paint.

Photo ornament

Caroline's second grade photo ornament using her school photo and a painted frame.

glitter ornament

A fun, easy ornament for young kids to make using glue, glitter and tissue paper.

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Your Tray or Mine: Kid’s Craft of the Day: Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

13 Dec
Snickerdoodle Cookies

Yesterday's post was all about Snickerdoodle Cookies

Yesterday’s cookie tray recipe was for Snickerdoodles, a simple cinnamon-sugar cookie. Since we were already talking cinnamon, I decided to make today’s craft idea suggestion all about the cinnamon as well.

I personally have not yet made this craft with my kids, but I do have a funny story about it, which will also explain why I currently don’t have a photo for it either.

One year in preschool my daughter made these. They smell wonderful but are very delicate when they’re done.

The following year she was in kindergarten and was asked to bring an ornament to hang on the school bus, an annual tradition that the bus driver does. My daughter asked to bring her cinnamon ornament for the bus.

I told her to consider bringing in a different ornament, that this one was delicate and she should consider taking something more hardy to hang in the bus window. But, this was in her head that she was bringing in this ornament and no other, so against my better judgement I let her.

I’m sure you can guess the end of my story….and imagine the tears that flowed the day she had to get off the bus with only half an ornament left on the red yarn. I’m not very good about NOT saying “I told you so,” so I’m sure I uttered that a time or three.

In the meantime….here’s the recipe for Cinnamon Ornaments. There’s no baking involved! And a word of advice: Don’t bring them on the school bus.

Handmade Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

Thanks to Sabrina J. for submitting some photos to go along with this recipe!

CINNAMON ORNAMENTS

Mix 3/4 to 1 cup of applesauce with one 4.12 oz. bottle ground cinnamon. It will form a stiff dough.

Roll out to 1/4″ thickness.

Cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Make a hole at the top with a straw for the ribbon.

Carefully put on a rack to dry.

Let air dry for several days, turning occasionally.

Makes 12 sweet-smelling ornaments, great for your tree or for gifts.

This recipe card that I have is old and faded, so I’ve had it a long time and it says “McCormick” the spice company, at the bottom, so this is their recipe.

Drying cinnamon ornaments

Here are Sabrina's ornaments as they were drying out. Thanks again!

If you have ever made these or if you decide after reading this to make these, take a photo of them, send it to me and I’ll add it here and to my Photos from Fans page as well. I’ll credit you with the photo credits! You can email it to me at jenniferlcowart@gmail.com.

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Where do you get your recipes?

10 Dec

I often get asked where I get my recipes from. So many of them are passed down to me from my mom, but even she had to get them from somewhere! Today, I thought I’d show you a few of the cookbooks that I’ve gotten these delicious dessert recipes from.

My dad's favorite, the Glazed Pineapple Cookies come from this cookbook.

This is an old cookbook that my mom has gotten some of her recipes from, including the Glazed Pineapple Cookies (coming up later this month.)

Lots of our recipes come from this cookbook!

You can see the Chocolate Krinkles right on the cover of the “Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book” cookbook. We get several of our recipes from here.

For Christmas a few years ago my mom gave me this copy, which is the “new” version.

Then for my birthday this past summer, my cousin Val gave me a “vintage” copy that she’d found in her travels, which made her think of me. So now I have both, with the vintage one being the exact same one my mom has.

I have had this one since before I was married. Not saying that's eon's ago, but still, a long time!

When I was teaching middle school one year, I got this “Favorite Brand Name Cookie Collection” cookbook from the “Book Man” who used to leave books in the faculty room for us to purchase. I then used it for a math lesson where we doubled a selection of the recipes (fractions) and made enough of them (measuring) for everyone to take some home. Hands on math…

I received this cookbook from a Stampin' Up! customer one Christmas and I've gotten one of my favorite recipes from it!

My Creamy Hot Chocolate recipe came out of the “Old Fashioned Holiday Recipes” cookbook! I make it at least once a week, so often that I keep the recipe right on my cabinet at all times (even though I could probably make it with my eyes shut by now.)

Strawberry Shortcake Holiday Treats Cookbook

Our Snickerdoodle Cookies recipe is out of this cookbook!

Our favorite recipe for Snickerdoodles comes from the girls’ cookbook, “Strawberry Shortcake Holiday Treats” and it’s super easy and delicious! They’ve tabbed a whole bunch of other recipes for us to try out in the future!

I’m sure there are several others to share so I’ll keep adding to this post as I go along with my recipe sharing, but for now, this will get you started in case you come across any of these cookbooks in your travels too!

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Do You Fondue? We did!

8 Dec

Hershey Kiss Fondue Kit from ElizabethThe other day I wrote about my daughter surprising me with a Hershey’s Fondue kit when she got home from school. Well tonight was the night, we had Chocolate Fondue for dessert after dinner. Dinner was leftovers, which was simple and easy, so having a fun dessert like chocolate fondue gave us something to look forward to afterwards!

On my way home from work today I got some fun items to dip into the fondue: apples, strawberries, chocolate chip cookies, and wafer cookies. I have to say, there’s nothing like a chocolate chip cookie dipped in smooth, warm chocolate!! The recipe included in the box also had some dipper ideas.

The Hershey’s Fondue Kit came with two recipes, one for a Milk Chocolate Bar Fondue and one for Chocolate Lover’s Fondue. I looked at both to see which one I had all the ingredients for, and it was the Chocolate Lover’s Fondue. No coincidence there, right?!

Here’s the recipe:
CHOCOLATE LOVER’S FONDUE

INGREDIENTS

2 cups (12 oz. pkg.) Hershey’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

3/4 cup light cream or half and half (I used half and half)

1/2 cup sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1 Combine chocolate chips, light cream (or half and half) and sugar in heavy medium sauce. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until chocolate chips are melted and mixture is hot.

2 Pour into fondue pot; serve warm with Assorted Fondue Dippers. Makes about 2 cups fondue.

Assorted Fondue Dippers: marshmallows, cherries, grapes, mandarin orange segments, pineapple chunks, strawberries, fresh fruit slices, cake pieces.

Here are some photos from our fun dessert!

Hershey's Kisses Chocolate Fondue

Candle is lit, fondue is hot and ready to go!

Kids and Hershey's Kisses Fondue Kit

Can you tell Elizabeth is excited? She got the first bite of fondue since it's her kit.

Caroline and the Hershey's Kisses Fondue Kit

Caroline chooses a chocolate chip cookie dipper.

Alex and the Hershey's Kisses Fondue Kit

Alex tries out the chocolate chip cookie dippers too!

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Crafts for Kids: Story for the day today: You Can Do It, Sam

7 Dec

Today I posted a recipe for my brother’s favorite cookies, Brown Eyed Susans and I talked about how each of us in our family has a favorite cookie on the trays so that you can’t ever think of leaving one out or someone will be disappointed.

As a kid, we lived on a “country road” where the houses were kind of spread apart and our neighbors were sometimes down a long and winding road, or in a house we couldn’t see, even though they were nearby. On Christmas Eve each year, my brother and I would walk up and down the road, up and down the long, winding driveways for hours, delivering our trays of cookies to our neighbors. Some of these people we wouldn’t see very often during the year, even though we were neighbors, but everyone knew that on Christmas Eve Chris and I would be coming around with the cookie trays.

Elephant Ears were always Mr. Lussier's favorite.

It would take us hours because it wasn’t just a drop and run, it was a stop, stay and chat, and watch as the neighbors would exclaim over the cookie trays because they’d been waiting all year for their favorite cookie. I remember our one neighbor, Mr. Lussier, his favorites were Elephant Ears, and my mom only made just so many of those so each tray would get ONE Elephant Ear. The Lussiers knew that one cookie belonged to Mr. Lussier. As labor-intensive as those were, we could never leave them out or Mr. Lussier would be disappointed.

These memories of delivering the cookies are so, so special to me, I almost get choked up as I type this. Many of those people are now long gone, and my parents have since moved as well, but the memories…they stay forever and every single year when I make my cookies, I think of them fondly. It gets me through those moments at midnight the week before Christmas when I think to myself, “Why the heck am I doing this again?” Then I remember how much these cookies mean to the people we give them to, and how much the memories mean to me as well.

Today’s story is one that was given to my kids for Christmas in 2008 by my brother Chris and his wife, Nina, so I thought it was only appropriate to share today. It’s called “You Can Do It, Sam,” by Amy Hest and illustrated by Anita Jeram. Ours even came with a plush of the main character, courtesy of the Kohl’s Cares for Kids program that year. It’s about a mother bear and her baby bear, Sam. Together they make many cakes for their neighbors on Plum Street. Together they bake and together they wait as the cakes finish. And then, together, they put the cakes into bags for their neighbors. Sam is now old enough to deliver the cakes to the neighbors himself, as his mom waits in the truck for him as he delivers all twelve cakes to his neighbors.

It’s such a special story and it is so special that it was given to us by my brother and his wife, because whether they knew it at the time or not, it invokes such special memories for me of our days together, delivering our cookies to our neighbors. It’s a book to teach my kids about the special meaning behind baking for others, behind giving a piece of yourself to others, and creating memories of our own as a family during a crazy holiday season.

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